Fishes of Texas Project

We are pleased to see the Fishes of Texas (FoTX) Project database and our analyses of its content now transformed into an innovative new, and broadly collaborative, on-the-ground Texas Parks and Wildlife Department conservation action program, complete with its very own independent web pages (https://nativefishconservation.org/). 

Overview: Approximately 47% of Texas native freshwater fishes are considered imperiled. The primary cause is anthropogenic alteration of freshwater systems, which continues to occur at rates and scales that threaten the long-term resiliency of freshwater habitats, species, and ecosystems. An integrated, holistic, multi-species, and habitat-based approach to conservation of freshwater systems was necessary to address these issues. So, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Fishes of Texas Project collaborated on Watershed-Based Conservation Planning that utilized our Species Distribution Models (SDMs) to create a statewide network of Native Fish Conservation Areas (NFCAs).

Management Implementation: Twenty NFCAs have now been designated statewide, each selected on the basis of FoTX’s spatial prioritization focused on identifying areas critically important to the long-term persistence of 90 freshwater fish species of greatest conservation need. Each NFCA now has its own group of stakeholders who meet to collaboratively prioritize NFCA-wide conservation action projects to benefit native fish communities. This approach  encourages and facilitates coordination among land owners, non-governmental organizations, state and federal agencies, universities, and local governments to achieve landscape-scale conservation within focal watersheds.

History: This effort evolved from an initial Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) grant to FoTX that yielded the identification of priority conservation actions and research needs for focal fish species and priority watersheds of the GPLCC. Background on this project can be found here.

GPLCC grant

Project Partners: (links open in new tab) Hendrickson lab (Fishes of Texas Project group), Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC), Great Plains Fish Habitat Partnership, Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD)

Project Goal:  The GPLCC supported efforts by the partners referenced above to utilize this multi-species, watershed-based framework to facilitate cooperative planning and collaborative conservation of aquatic resources within the GPLCC’s multi-jurisdictional landscape. 

Project Objective:  Identify priority conservation actions and research needs for focal fish species and priority watersheds of the GPLCC through a series of watershed-specific workshops to obtain expert input, select critical management zones, identify potential conservation actions, and identify priority data and science needs that must be addressed in order to guide conservation actions.

Project Benefits:  This project sought to advance the cooperative conservation of Great Plains rivers and native fishes, and provide a catalyst for development of watershed-based conservation partnerships that will implement a proposed network of Native Fish Conservation Areas in the region. 

Background:  Through earlier support from the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) (Labay and Hendrickson (2014) and Hendrickson et al. 2016) used Species Distribution Models from our Fishes of Texas Project in a conservation assessment that provides a spatial framework for planning and implementing conservation actions to benefit 28 priority fishes in rivers of the Great Plains.  That assessment provided data-driven guidance and science-based justification for selection of priority river systems to advance watershed-scale conservation planning and delivery in the Great Plains.  In particular, the Native Fish Conservation Areas (NFCAs) analysis identified a set of watersheds uniquely valued in preservation of regional fish diversity. 

Update (November 2017): We publish updated content from this project in the webpages of the Native Fish Conservation Network. For each NFCA identified in the conservation assessment, regional stakeholders formed Advisory Councils that focus on facilitating cooperative conservation of native fishes and other aquatic resources. Watershed-based conservation planning workshops have been conducted for the Native Fish Conservation Areas in the Platte, Arkansas, Canadian, Red, Brazos, and Colorado rivers and the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas. More than 135 subject-matter experts participated in these meetings and worked to (1) identify priority research, monitoring, and restoration actions for preservation of native fishes, their habitats and other aquatic resources, (2) catalyze cooperation, collaboration, and leveraging of technical and financial resources among the local, state and federal natural resources management agencies, universities, non-governmental organizations, and other local partners that contribute to the conservation of native fishes and other aquatic resources, and (3) facilitate local implementation of the Native Fish Habitat Action Plan. To date, participants have recommended approximately 230 project-level actions to conserve freshwater biodiversity in these priority watersheds.

This Texas fish occurrence data aggregation and normalization project, as well as related research that utilizes its products, has been our primary focus for a number of years now. Its massive dataset can be queried and records downloaded from our main website (http://fishesoftexas.org). A recent presentation summarizing the project’s history is available (Hendrickson, D., Cohen, A., & Garrett, G. (2023, February 23). Fishes of Texas Project: Update and future . Texas Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA. https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/44416).